Our 2021 year in review was quite the adventure. Dave and I finally tied the knot after a pretty turbulent few years of breaking a leg, delaying our wedding because of the c‘vid, and navigating through brand new rules and regulations. 2020 kept us a bit more ‘grounded’ than normal. For 2021, we were ready to break some records from 2019 where we saved over $70,000 traveling to 7 new countries. 2020 I did things a bit differently since we weren’t traveling much. Instead, we focused our efforts to pay off $45,000 in credit card debt. So lets get into our 2021 breakdowns!
The Numbers:
With experience from trial and error, we got better with points and miles and routing bookings. 2021 we were able to DOUBLE the number of countries we visited, flying fewer miles, but spending over 2.5 MILLION miles. We saved over $88,000 with premium class bookings that included flying in Lufthansa First, Q-Suites to the Maldives, and a bunch of weekend trips. On all of our travel for hotels and flights, we spent $3,716.07. So lets break down each place visited!
| 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | |
| # of nights | 66 | 80 | 82 |
| Countries Visited | 6 | 7 | 14 |
| Miles Flown | 53,149 | 76,046 | 50,287 |
| Points Used | 998,334 | 1,033,724 | 2,508,950 |
| Should have Cost | $39,765.25 | $70,999.26 | $88,178.87 |
| Total Cost | $8,945.64 | $5,129.36 | $3,716.07 |
Belize/Vegas/Bend, Oregon
As newly vaccinations tourists, Belize became the first country to allow entry with your vaccine card. We decided to travel and share our experience as vaccinated travelers to Belize. Belize was a breath of fresh air. First we headed to Ambergris Cay. We Scuba dove the Blue Hole, drove around in golf carts, visited the secret beach, got sunburn, and just went with the flow. Staying at Mahogany Bay we used 140,000 Hilton Honors points. This saved us over $1,600 for 5 nights. Next, we headed over to Placencia where we attempted to see Whale Sharks (which was a fail) and ate the best ice cream I’ve ever had.
How we got to Belize
To get here, we booked using our Southwest Companion Pass for 32,785 points plus $11.20 in taxes & fees. We also used some Ultimate Rewards points to take the quick 15 minute flights from Belize to San Pedro, then over to Placencia. These flights would have cost us about $570 but instead, we used 22,800 Ultimate Rewards points. For our hotel in Placencia, we also used Chase Ultimate Rewards points and booked a local place for 15,000 points for the 2 nights.
Las Vegas
After about a week in Belize, we headed off to Vegas to enjoy our annual Caesar’s status match $100 dinner. In 2019 we went to Nobu for a Basic Date Night. For 2020, we ventured off to Atlantic City to use our credits. 2021 we decided to try out Hell’s Kitchen for their famous Beef Wellington, and boy did it not disappoint. We enjoyed a delicious $246 dinner for only $46 (plus tip). It was fun to spend a night in Vegas to enjoy a delicious dinner before we jetted off to our next destination!
Flights to Vegas from Belize we scored tickets on American Airlines for 10,500 points each, plus $78.17 in taxes each. International return to the US taxes and fees always vary, but we should have paid $363 each if we paid cash.
Bend, OR
For our final destination, we headed up to Portland, Oregon. Renting a car and making the threeish-hour trek through the winding mountains to Bend. We fulfilled another #basicdatenight to visit the Last Blockbuster in the world. Stepping inside felt like stepping back into the late ’90s with a visit to Blockbuster on Friday night, spending hours figuring out which movie to rent. It was definitely a surreal experience and we made sure to buy some blockbuster-related goodies to support the store. After Blockbuster, we were pretty beat from 12 different flights in less than 2 weeks’ time frame. We decided to splurge on a MINT flight home. Utilizing Emirates and some Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, we scored two seats for 52,000 points each. I estimated this flight cost about $948 each. This 13-day excursion ended up costing us $408 and 381,245 points out of pocket and saving $6,832.57.
Top Cards Used:
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier– used this card to earn companion pass, then used the points to book flights
- Chase Sapphire Preferred– This card has been pretty steadily in my wallet for travel protection and points!
- Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card– I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- this should be in everyones wallet. The card pays you to have it and you earn top tier Hilton status. Its a no brainer. I even wrote an article with 11 reasons why.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Trip Review
Should have cost: $6,832.37
Cash Paid: $408.64
Points Used: 381,245
Miles Flown: 10,534
Number of Nights: 13
Bachelorette- Fort Lauderdale
For my bachelorette, a few girlfriends and I headed down to sunny Fort Lauderdale! It just so happened that it was also the air show that weekend. Because of this, it was super expensive for hotels. Luckily I had some IHG points stashed away and was able to book an amazing stay at the brand new Kimpton Goodland Fort Lauderdale. It was a beautiful hotel, as well as great location a few blocks from the beach and all the action. We used a mixture of points and cash for the hotel booking, as well as using Southwest Companion pass to get half off of our flights! IHG points used were 84,000 plus $112. We paid cash for one flight of $180 and the other used 5,000 Southwest points.
Top Cards Used:
- The IHG Rewards Club Premier Credit Card – Useful for earning enough points for a 3 night stay when rates were over $250 per night.
Trip Review
Should have cost: $1,033
Cash Paid: $292
Points Used: 89,000
Miles Flown: 2,381
Number of Nights: 3
WE GOT MARRIED
Our 2021 Year in Review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning one of the biggest milestones. I know this really isn’t a “points and miles” trip to include in the recap but it was a pretty substantial period in our lives AND we were able to earn hundreds of thousands of points & miles from strategizing our wedding expenses. So, I think it deserves a spot. Plus, we DID have a Travel Themed wedding (which I still need to write about). Also, for the wedding weekend, we used Hilton Honors points to stay 2 nights downtown Buffalo at the Hilton Garden Inn. I included 2 nights into the final tally at the top.
Extended Honeymoon
I had always dreamed of doing an extended honeymoon. After sadly having to delay our wedding in 2020, we realized it just gave us an extra year to really bulk up our points and miles. Luckily (or unluckily?) with weddings come a lot of expenses. I highly recommend strategically planning the wedding to maximize your points potential. Going into the trip, we had amassed about three million points and miles between our accounts. With Dave working in a school, he luckily has a long summer off. I was on leave from the pandemic, so it was the perfect opportunity to take the time and spend our points. We ended up traveling to 13 countries in a 6 week period, saving over $70,000. Starting in the Maldives, then traveling throughout Western Asia and Europe to end in Germany. Countries visited:
- Maldives
- United Arab Emirates (Dubai)
- Jordan
- Turkey
- Croatia
- Montenegro
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Italy
- The Vatican
- France
- Belgium
- Netherlands
- Germany
Honeymoon Breakdown
I already did a pretty detailed breakdown of the points and miles we used here. For our 2021 year in review, the honeymoon was the majority of our travel. A lot of the bookings we did while we were on the road/a a few days in advance because the regulations were changing SO much with the pandemic. Before we left we had booked our flights to the Maldives in Q-Suites, along with the Hilton Conrad for a 5-night stay in the Maldives. We also had our flights booked out of the Maldives to Dubai and we had no set return date except for sometime in August.
Overall we ended up traveling for 43 nights, spending a little over 1.5 million miles. (Just over 2 million if you include the pay yourself back points we used). This was over half of our year in review nights! Our flights included Business class in Q-suites, and flying home First class on Lufthansa. We should have spent over $70,846. Instead, we paid $2,674 which included all of our hotels and flights.
Top Cards Recommended:
- Chase Sapphire Preferred– Priority pass access, trip protection, and ultimate rewards points
- The Platinum Card® from American Express– this gave us trip protection plus access to the Centurion lounges
- Hilton Honors Aspire – Diamond status with Hilton, Free Night Certificate
Trip Review:
Should have cost: $70,846
Cash Paid: $2674
Points Used: 1,540,217 (plus 13 Free Night Certificates)
Miles Flown: 19,923
Number of Nights: 43
Kansas City
Every year we plan to attend at least ONE away Buffalo Bills game. Kansas City was high on our list for 2021. Dave has a goal to visit every NFL stadium and it has been pretty fun traveling all over the US to different stadiums. Our very first away game was back in 2015 to Philadelphia with 4 other friends when we were just about a month into dating. Since then we have traveled to Green Bay, Dallas, Houston, and attempted to go to the Las Vegas game in 2020. Kansas City was a place neither of us had been, and it wound up being one of our wildest trips by being confused for a Buffalo Bills Chiropractor and being upgraded to the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.
This trip was a long weekend trip where we utilized our favorite Southwest Companion Pass to score roundtrip flights for 36,000 Rapid Rewards Points (which we can also transfer over from our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points). For our hotel accommodation, we used 35,000 points per night with our Marriott Bonvoy points. Saving over $1,400 for a quick weekend stint and paying $27.74 out of pocket for flights & hotels is a win in my book! What I love about quick weekend trips is you can often book with 2 credit cards for your flights and hotels.
Top Cards Recommended:
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card
Trip Review:
Should have cost: $1,425
Cash Paid: $27.74
Points Used: 141,024
Miles Flown: 2,119
Number of Nights: 3
Denver
A quick trip to Denver to attend CardCon and see what it was all about. I flew in an extra day early to spend some time with my family and then stayed two nights at The Curtis Denver- a DoubleTree property. Nights were 30,000 Hilton Honors points each, and I asked for an upgrade via the app. They gave me the iconic I Love Lucy Room. Southwest also happened to have a cheap flight for 11,000 points that I was able to fly direct to Denver, saving time and money.
Trip Review:
Should have cost: $617.48
Cash Paid: $11.20
Points Used: 84,185
Miles Flown: 3,281
Number of Nights: 3
Top Cards Recommended:
New Orleans
After an amazing win in Kansas City, we were super amped to attend another Thanksgiving day game in New Orleans. In 2019 we headed down to Dallas with some friends and were able to meet up again with those friends for another incredible win. This trip was probably by far the BEST away game we had ever gone to. The incredible Bills Mafia came through town with their OWN Buffalo Bills PARADE that shut down the NOLA streets for a half-hour the day before the game. It was incredible to see thousands of Blue and Red in the streets everywhere you went for the long holiday weekend.
How we got there
Traveling during holidays is always tough, but with points and miles, we saved over $1,000. Utilizing Southwest Companion Pass, the flights down were only 13,341. The flight home was a bit more expensive at 27,933 points. So total for flights was 41,274 Southwest Rapid Rewards points plus our normal $22.40 in taxes and fees. We then utilized our Hyatt points at 15,000 per night. We were in walking distance of most activities so saved money on Uber’s for the trip as well!
Trip Review
Should have cost: $2,254.58
Cash Paid: $22.40
Points Used: 101,274
Miles Flown: 2,846
Number of Nights: 4
Top Cards Recommended
- Chase Sapphire Preferred Card – can transfer points to Hyatt and Southwest
Las Vegas
Another quick weekend trip to network with some points & miles folks! This time we headed down to ZorkFest to learn a little bit about different Casino plays along with points & miles. We again utilized our favorite trick in the book- Southwest Companion Pass for 24,750 points and $22.40 round trip for 2 people! For our hotel, we actually paid cash since they were offering a discount to stay at the Plaza.
Trip Review
Should have cost: $845.90
Cash Paid: $246.34
Points Used: 24,750
Miles Flown: 4,533
Number of Nights: 3
Top Cards Recommended:
Puerto Rico
Originally we had plans to go to Turk’s & Caicos during Christmas break. Every year when Southwest releases their schedule, we book for holiday trips- so Thanksgiving and Christmas. We do this for a few reasons-
- To get the cheaper wanna get away fares.
- If prices go down when booking with points, we can reimburse and book for the cheaper trips.
- We can easily cancel and change the trip with points bookings and be refunded on southwest.
So when finding a hotel for Turks & Caicos seemed impossible and that we would have to spend thousands of dollars, we decided to pivot. Easily able to cancel our flights, we re-booked for Puerto Rico. A bonus is Buffalo to Puerto Rico has a direct flight a few times a week! Booking last minute I quickly snagged 4 nights at the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico for 15,000 points per night. Then we booked 2 other nights right in San Juan. One night at Hyatt Place and the other at the Hyatt House for a #battleofthehotels.
Flight home
We decided to fly on New Year Eve to see if we could see the fireworks from the skies. It seriously did not disappoint. There were two cool things that happened on this trip. First, there was a one-hour time difference in Puerto Rico. When the clock struck midnight, the flight crew made an announcement celebrating the New Year. About an hour later, entering into East Coast time, the clock again, struck midnight. Again, the flight crew made an announcement and the whole plane celebrated. We were just about to land in Fort Lauderdale and I looked out my window to see fireworks lighting up the sky all over the place. (Swipe below on our IG the video). Since our flight got in past midnight, and our flight out was around 7 am back to Buffalo, we just slept in the airport for the night.
Trip Review
Should have cost: $3,989.48
Cash Paid: $22.40
Points Used: 109,315
Miles Flown: 4,068
Number of Nights: 7
Top Cards Recommended
This trip could have been done all using Chase Ultimate Rewards points and transferring to Hyatt and Southwest.
Plans for 2022
Future plans for 2022 include our re-scheduled 2020 Peru trip, which will include sleeping in a hotel attached to a mountain, hiking Machu Picchu, and spending time in Lake Titicaca. This trip had been previously booked and paid for in anticipation of our April 2020 spring break, which was canceled due to not being allowed entry for the pandemic.
For summer plans, so far we have an Alaskan cruise booked. This has always been a dream of ours and we were able to score a super discounted rate of $977 for the two of us which includes 10 nights in an ocean view room, tips and gratuity. We even further got another $245 off of this trip by utilizing Chase’s Carnival promotions of spending $100 and getting $35 off. Between our accounts, we had 7 offers available. We wrote a pretty detailed breakdown in our group here utilizing Casino Status Matches for this discount.
Basic Breakdown of 2021 Year in Review
I hope this breakdown gave you some insight and ideas to fund your travels for 2022 and beyond! I know I love reading trip overviews to see how to use points in different ways and even give ideas on how you can maximize value for your points the best. Don’t forget to check out our previous year in reviews- 2020, 2019, and 2018. What was your favorite part of 2022? Did you get to travel?
I’d love to hear in the comments below or over in our 8,700+ Member Basic Travel Facebook Group!
- Top 9 Fall Foliage plus Photography Tips
- The Greatest Pumpkin Farm in Buffalo
- Where can you travel to this holiday season?
- Basic Guide to New England Road Trip
- All-Inclusive Cancun Vacation during a Pandemic
- Basic Guide to Yellowstone National Park
- Top 5 Scenic Drives in the US
- 10 ways to Save Money on a US National Park Trip
- How to make an extra $1,000 this month
- Top 10 National Parks to visit in the US
- Ultimate Utah State Park Road Trip with Itinerary
For rates and fees for American Express cards mentioned in this post, please see the following links: The Platinum Card® from American Express (See Rates & Fees; terms apply);
